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BY 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access May 13, 2019

Introduction: Contemporary African and Black Diasporic Spaces in Europe

  • Anna Rastas EMAIL logo and Kaarina Nikunen
From the journal Open Cultural Studies

Abstract

This special issue explores spaces where identifications with the African diaspora become articulated, (re)negotiated and, as demonstrated by many articles in this issue, established as a field of the collective agency with transformative power in European societies. The African diaspora communities and cultures in Europe are constructed not only by individuals’ engagements in Africa and its global diaspora but also through the collective agency, aiming at promoting change in European societies shadowed by the normative whiteness, nationalist discourses and policies, human rights violations and overt racism. In this introduction, we discuss the empirical studies presented in this special issue as examples of academic, political and artistic spaces of African and black diasporic agency. Together, the articles make visible the diversity of African and black diasporic spaces in Europe. They also challenge methodological nationalism as well as essentialising discourses of race and ethnicity by acknowledging the global circulation of African and black diaspora cultures and the meanings of the transnational connections for diaspora communities.

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Received: 2018-12-18
Accepted: 2019-01-07
Published Online: 2019-05-13
Published in Print: 2019-01-01

© 2019 Anna Rastas et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.

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